Steel

This man was tall. He carried a lantern, the light of which emphasized the lines and crags of his face, his trimmed beard, and his grinning eyes. His tailored coat looked soft and rich, like velvet, and his breeches were leather. He might have seemed rich, but instead he seemed complicated, the richness of his clothes and the shining gold rings in his ears and chains on his neck contrasting with the worn leather of his gloves and boots. His thick, straight hair was tied in a tail with a red ribbon. He had a worn, well-used sword on a hanger at his belt—but the sword was missing the tip, the last six inches or so.

This was Edmund Blane.

You could lose a fencing bout before ever stepping onto the strip if you let your opponent intimidate you. If he had a reputation, and you let the reputation daunt you before the fight, you’d most likely lose. Fencing was as much a mind game as it was about physical skill.

She felt herself being daunted and tried to tell herself it was reputation, the stories she’d heard about him and fear left over from the battle at sea.

“Come along, then,” he said in a soft, calm voice—a tone that surprised her, and made her even more wary. “We’ll go where we can talk.”

He turned and walked away, not waiting for her response, not caring if she had one. His men fell in around her, an obvious escort for a prisoner.

Well. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

In silence, they continued. Blane and his crew didn’t seem to have the problem of not being able to walk in the straight line that Jill had struggled with. In moments, they left the forest and entered a rocky clearing.

Something crazy was going on, then. This was why no one could find them—unless Blane wanted to be found. Not that it made her feel any better.

In some ways, this seemed like a typical pirate camp, like the one that the Diana’s crew had made when they careened the ship on Jamaica. A pair of cook fires burned and formed the center of the camp; men were working repairing ropes, sails, tackle, any number of items; the smell of rum on the air was evident. But the atmosphere was subdued, taut. No one sang, no one laughed. They talked in low, anxious voices, and when Blane appeared they all fell silent and looked at him. Cooper’s crew looked on her with respect when she passed by, maybe with fondness, maybe even some love, but always respect. Blane’s crew turned wide and hungry eyes on him; they respected him and his power, but they obeyed him because they were afraid of him.

They were preparing weapons, sharpening blades on a whetstone, cleaning muskets and lining them up in a long, dark row.

Jill kept her back straight and reminded herself that she could use the sword she carried, that none of them had thought to take away from her. At least, she was pretty sure she could.

The clearing overlooked a cove, a sheltered inlet on the coast. The Heart’s Revenge was anchored a little ways off, a fearsome ship lit by lanterns and flickering shadows, its masts naked and skeletal. Blane stopped at the edge of the camp, before the overhang dropped off, a steep slope to the narrow, sandy beach below, and looked out at his ship for a moment. Jill waited.

“Where is it?” Blane asked, still looking outward.

Jill swallowed; she hadn’t had any water to drink in hours, and her throat was sticky. If she asked for a drink, they’d only give her something with rum in it. She wasn’t going to drink any rum here.

“Where is what?” she said, knowing what he was asking about.

“The sword. You’re here because you found the missing piece of my sword.”

“How do you know that?”

“I made that sword. I know everything about it, and you’re connected to it. Now, where’s the shard?”

Even broken and useless, he still carried the sword because it was important. Because he needed it, and he needed it whole, because it had power. And if the broken piece of steel had brought her here, maybe the sword it had come from could send her home. Somehow.

Before she lost her nerve, she said quickly, “If you know everything, then you know how I got here, and you know I don’t belong here. I need—I want to go back home. Can you help me? Can you send me back?”

“Perhaps. If you can tell me where the piece is.”

It wasn’t like he didn’t already know so much, or that he could do anything differently if she told him. But saying where it was—telling him directly—would be betraying Captain Cooper. Jill couldn’t do it.

“If you know everything about it, then you already know,” she said, her voice shaking a little. She wasn’t a very good liar. “Why ask me?”

He paced, hand hooked over the hilt of his sword, wry smile on his lips, polished boots crunching dirt underneath. “You could have lost it. You could have thrown it back into the sea. You could still have it. You could have given it to someone.” He stopped and looked at her, eyebrows lifted. “Marjory Cooper?”

Jill didn’t say anything.

“And she still has it? I’d have expected her to throw it back to the sea, as she did the last time. Can you tell me: Did she? Or did she keep it?”

He didn’t know where it was. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have fled the battle at sea last week. He’d have smashed the Diana to pieces, boarded her, and taken it. On some level, he must have been afraid of Cooper. Captain Cooper had stopped him last time by getting rid of the rapier shard. He was being careful because he didn’t want her to do something like that again.

But he thought he could use Jill to get it.

“I don’t know. Why would she tell me anything?” She tried to sound surly instead of scared.